1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus such as a printer.
2. Related Art
An ink jet printer which performs printing by discharging ink from nozzles provided in a recording head is an example of a liquid ejecting apparatus. Of such printers, there is a printer which includes a cap member for capping a recording head, an absorbing member accommodated in the cap member, and a suction mechanism which sucks the inside of the cap member, in which the printer performs suction cleaning that discharges ink in the recording head by performing suction via the cap member (for example, JP-A-2008-23781). In general, after the suction cleaning, the ink held in the absorbing member is discharged by performing idle suction in which the inside of the cap member is subjected to suction in an uncapped state.
However, in a printer similar to that described above, there is a case in which a plurality of cap members corresponding to different nozzle groups are provided, and suction cleaning is performed selectively on a portion of the nozzle groups. In this case, the amounts of ink held in the plurality of cap members differ.
When performing the idle suction by driving the suction mechanism connected to the plurality of cap members, the discharging completes in order from the cap member with the smallest amount of ink absorbed in the absorbing member. Therefore, in the cap members for which the ink discharging is completed, air is sucked via the absorbing members from which the ink is discharged, and there is a problem in that sufficient suction force may not be exerted on the cap members in which ink remains.
Note that, this problem is not limited to a cap member for capping, and is largely common to all liquid ejecting apparatuses provided with a plurality of liquid holding portions which temporarily hold liquid such as a flushing box that receives liquid that is discharged from nozzles, and a suction mechanism which sucks the plurality of liquid holding portions.